After 2 Years Without Bleach, I Want Nothing to do With Hair Dye

February 2017 marked two full years since I last dyed my hair. Even though I don't love my natural color, I want my hair to be fully healthy.

Let me give you a quick background as well as what I learned in transitioning back to my natural color:

I used to dye my hair a very light blonde hue, but long story short, although I was babying it and taking as much care of it as I could have, improper use of bleach--which was done at a salon, by the way--caused extreme breakage. To say it was devastatingly traumatizing for me would be the understatement of my life. The breakage took a huge toll on my self esteem and I was depressed. I was a beauty blogger at the time with a focus on hair and I felt like I just failed at life. The experience scarred me. Being terrified to have anyone use color on my hair, and wanting my hair to really get as healthy as it could be, meant I would grow out my natural color.

I thought my curls were in decent condition at the time when my hair was colored.

But looking back now, my length was very thin, the ends were scraggly and my hair was a lot frizzier. The curls were also stretched out and not nearly as bouncy and defined as they have been becoming lately. The process to grow out hair color is quite tedious. I didn't want to big chop because I lost enough length as it was and was unwilling to sacrifice losing any more. This meant going for trims regularly to remove the dead ends without losing too much more length at once. For a while (months!) the line of demarcation looked pretty awkward, but I dealt with it as I reminded myself how some day in the future, I will have really long hair again that will also be healthy!

As the months and years went on, the awkward line of demarcation turned onto my hair looking like I just paid someone money to 'ombre' my ends.

Luckily, that was still a popular look so I got by. Now I would say at least 90% of my hair is my natural color, with some ends still having slight color that will probably get trimmed off by the end of 2017. Aside from having two clear different hair colors growing it out, the breakage was uneven and some of the breakage pieces were noticeably shorter. I didn’t want all my hair as short as some of the shortest breakage pieces so my current hairdresser listened and understood, micro-trimmed them to remove the dead ends and I just let them be, as awkward and not ideal as it was.

THIS made the biggest difference.

Caring for bleach, colored damage curls versus caring for natural hair color is the amount of product I use. I am still adjusting and too often I get heavy-handed with products, but only because when my hair had bleach in it, my hair felt so dry and damaged and required a lot more conditioner and product in order to style it the way I wanted.

Some of the other bonuses of having my natural hair color back is not having to spend hours sitting at a salon with dye on my hair as well as having to spend all the extra money to get it done and also not having to worry about roots growing in. I did the math: I save over $1,000 a year by not going to get my hair colored! I can’t believe how much thicker my hair is now that it is nearly all natural again. I’ve been taking Viviscal supplements since the breakage happened to help my hair grow.

For the longest time, I hated my hair length. I love long hair on me.

Short hair looks so lovely on other people, not on me. I didn’t like it and I hated mirrors. If you scroll through my Instagram, you may have even noticed during that time there was significantly less selfies. My hair is finally at an acceptable point I feel a bit better about, but it’s still short for my own likings.

I don’t love my natural color. It’s a dirty strawberry blonde, and I like light blonde better on me. However, I'd rather have curls that are more defined and bouncy, hair that is less frizzy, and more manageable. I also have some greys peeping in now that I am getting older. I think they give my color a little dimension and I don’t mind them. Again, I want my hair to be fully healthy.

A last important note about my choice...

Of course I know for many people who dye their hair, it stays healthy and they enjoy it, which is awesome for them! This is my personal experience with hair dye and admittedly, now I am pretty afraid of it. I cannot say that I would never dye my hair for the rest of my life because I cannot predict the future and things may change. But for now, I want nothing to do with it.